General Motors Exec: “It’s Not Necessary To Put Down $1,000 And Wait Until 2018” For An Affordable, 200-Mile Electric Car

General Motors’ vice president of global propulsion systems, Dan Nicholson, spoke in Detroit Wednesday about the Chevrolet Bolt EV, substantiating the company’s plans to combat Tesla in the battle of affordable, long-range electric cars.

Inside The Chevy Bolt EV

Nicholson reminded the public that the Bolt EV will go on sale soon, way before Tesla’s Model 3 actually surfaces. The Model 3 has obviously been the object of much more media attention, but reports have speculated that this may help “all” electric car makers and sales. Especially those like the Bolt EV that boast “fully-electric”, “increased range”, and “mass market affordability”.

At this point, the Bolt EV is the only upcoming vehicle, aside from the Model 3, to satisfy the above requirements. Nicholson said:

“I am very proud of the Chevrolet Bolt that’s coming out, which will be the first to market as a long-range affordable battery electric vehicle. It will have more than 200 miles of range and it will be in production by the end of 2016, so it’s not necessary to put down $1,000 and wait until 2018 or sometime after that.”

The comment obviously pokes at Tesla, as the company recently took 325,000400,000 reservations at $1,000 a pop. This for a car that may hit the market in small doses a year after the Bolt EV.

The two vehicles will compete due to range and pricing, even though the stylings are very different. The Model 3 is a small sedan with the very refined look of a sports car, while the Bolt is a small but roomy crossover. Both will achieve over 200 miles of range and ring in well under $40,000 for the base models.

Nicholson concluded with another strike at the competition:

“GM’s balance sheet is in pretty strong shape, so we don’t need to take $1,000 of your money just to hold a spot.”

-> You can save money (by not choosing CCS) if you know that you don’t need quick-charging (there’re enough BEV users who obviously don’t need it).
-> You won’t need to search for a charger from the car manufacturer for quick-charging if you have that option (like with ICE cars and gas stations today).

I don’t understand your posting.
1. AFAIK Teslas superchargers currently have max. 120kW – and that in north America even not everywhere.
2. Who says that Tesla will charge their batteries with >2C? (e.g. 120kW for a 60kWh battery)
Higher C-factor -> better batteries needed!
Ok, for a 90kWh (or 100kWh) Tesla 180kW (or 200kW) probably would make sense (but if they don’t even manage 120kW…).

Good battery performance is something Tesla has paid a lot of attention to. That is probably why their batteries are so much different . . . all those thousands of little cells as opposed to a smaller number of big cells.

Model S 60 charges for very short time at 1.5C. Realistically it doesn’t need more 70 kW charger.
Sure Bolt will use different NMC batteries and hopefully may use higher charging power, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Model 3 is vaporware in distant future so far and somebody can speculate it will charge at 100C or fly in the sky, whatever.

SparkEV charges at 2.5C to 80%. Bolt has similar (better?) LG battery that has higher heat tolerance. As such, it should be at least as capable as SparkEV (2.6C? 3C?). I read that SoulEV is also capable of 2.5C using 100 kW charger.

As for Tesla, yeah, they suck when it comes to charging C rate. Actually, Tesla isn’t so bad, but SparkEV is far above everyone else. If GM executives have any brain cells, they’d leverage this to their advantage. Instead, they stick with existing CCS to result in 0.8C for Bolt, the slowest “fast charging” EV in the world.

The average selling price of the Bolt will be far below that of the TM3. People buying the Bolt want value and making fast charging an option is part of keeping the base price low. Not everyone will need fast charging. In fact, ANYONE simply using the car for commuting that owns a home or apt. can just just overnight at Level 1 and be perfectly happy. 200 miles is a ton of range for commuting, errands, winter driving etc. Sure, there are people that dream about driving their car across the country, but regular folks who own homes and drive to/from work far exceed those numbers.

Not only do we not know the nominal pack energy of the base Model 3 (probably not less than 50kWh), but also Musk said that supercharging capability would be standard. Meanwhile, the S40 was not capable of supercharging (fortunately, none were actually produced – just software-limited 60s).

Unless these next-gen cells have some magic sauce, the supercharging limitations are going to be similar. The pack would have to be about 50kWh or more, nominal, in order to provide the 215+ EPA miles and be able to use the superchargers.

Maybe Mr. M thinks the source of whatever speculation he’s reporting is Elon Musk, but it ain’t. If anyone at Tesla had ever specified the kWh capacity for the Model ≡, it would have been reported at InsideEVs… often.

The article you linked to said “the author “predicts”…” a prediction by someone not a part of Tesla is as good as me saying I predict two models, a 50 and 70. I know there are many changes to come and many other specifications to be revealed. I’ll just wait and see what comes from Tesla, not “the author” of an article.

“You already cost more than the Model 3”. Seriously? News flash, neither cars are yet on sale. We don’t know yet for sure what a Bolt EV will cost, let alone the Model 3, which perhaps, hopefully will have a base price of $35K, who knows when, and with what specifications.

It doesn’t have proprietary Tesla walled garden access as standard anymore. It is “capable” and they “didn’t decided” yet. I would assume you would need to pay extra for access. Each access is verified by car VIN transmitted to Tesla charger. Nothing is free here, you either pay upfront, per month, or on per use basis.
And you need to compare it to second generation Bolt or Leaf, not first generation Bolt that will get old when Model 3 will get to mass production.

I believe the most important public charge network is the fast charge network. Level 2 is great, but it only helps when it’s there at the destination. It’s purpose is to reduce or eliminate time spent fast charging for a pure electric vehicle. A reliable comprehensive fast charge network provides the safety net that is always there to use whenever needed.

The comments in an article like this show how important being able to have freedom of travel is in most people’s minds. Model 3: no problem. Bolt: in 2016 not too good.

Yes, its great to have destination charging, IF its there at all. So when it is there it will help to eliminate or at least reduce the time spent fast charging. However, of the maybe around 2 to 5 percent of public charging that an EV needs, I would venture to say that the vast majority of that is fast charging.

Average person will need it at least once a month or once a year. And unfortunately it is frequently enough to rule out purchase of expensive electric car, if it requires to rent a gas car each time or carefully plan your route around chargers and waste plenty of time.

Brian, just to be clear here, 95 to 98 percent of charging is done at base, yes, but I’m breaking down even further the remaining 2-5 percent of charging which is public charging. The majority of PUBLIC CHARGING will be from fast chargers IMO.

Bolt and Model 3 both expensive. GM, you will see how Ghosn will launch a 180 miles car (Zoe) for 20k $ in first half 2017. This year Zoe could sell 30k units in Europe, with double range they could sell 60-100 k units a year.

I just hope they drop the battery lease, or give at least the option of purchase, like with the Leaf. It is just 5k more to buy the battery and I wouldn’t want to get stuck in some battery leasing loop.

The Bolt is expensive for this kind of econo car.
The Model 3 is a feature packed, high tech, high quality compelling car. Not expensive for what it offers.
They are not comparable. GM knows this but wants us to believe they are.

BTW Thanks to InsideEVs for erasing the agressive comment of ZIV in response to Emma, and mine at the same time as I fired back at him on the same tone for his free insults and hate toward Emma and “Who killed the Electric Car”

Well, it is much more believable that the GM will ship the Bolt for $37,500 than Tesla will ship the Model 3 for $35,000. I want to believe both but neither has a great track record on meeting their EV goals. I think GM’s record is a little better though.

I disagree. When Model S was introduced, there was 3 choices. The 40 kWh was the weakest and this car was targeted to the luxury class buyers who dont mind paying more to have more.
So at the opposite of what you insinuate, Tesla was never deceptive about the 50k$ version.

Model 3 is THE affordable one and is targeted on less rich customers. Plenty of which (me included) will be fine with the base model and delighted to be a small part of the rEVolution.

It doesn’t matter “deceptive” or not. It is just things cost money to produce and you can promise whatever for cheap but then reality creeps in and you notice that you can’t make ends and pay bills & salaries with all these rosy promises. So you split your product into “options” that are in fact required for usable product, and can both claim that you fulfilled promises and increase average sale price.

Prior to release, the MS was marketed as a “sub $60,000 EV.” Then when it came out, and Tesla saw that they could sell as many as they could make for an average of $90K, suddenly the sub-$60K option wasn’t popular enough to continue offering.

And on a totally unrelated note, the $60K “40kWh” MS had the exactly same battery as the $71K 60kWh MS, just software limited to use less of its capacity. But I’m sure that had nothing to do with the 40kWh being discontinued, right?

Speculawyer, Actually GM’s history doesn’t bode well for your chances of buying a Bolt for $37K when they are first released. When GM released the Volt, Chevy dealerships infamously slapped on $5,000 or $10,000 or even $20,000 or more in additional dealer profits.

You don’t know anything specific. You don’t even know how many years you will need to wait until Tesla will disclose how much exactly it will cost with all usable options. By that time, first generation Bolt will be many thousands below MSRP and we will be talking about second generation Bolt and few other mass market electric cars.

The 2011 Volt came, essentially, fully optioned. I think the only options were navigation, chrome wheels, and leather seats. I bought my 2011 Volt in spring of 2012 for $36K, fully loaded with every option and received the full $7500 tax credit. It’s been a great car and even though prices are even better now, I still feel like it was a very good value. BTW – 85% of my 61000 miles have been EV miles.

I would love to see a 180 mile range (EPA rating, not one of those unrealistic ratings) ZOE in Europe & the USA. But I seriously doubt they will do that. The 30KWH LEAF was a let-down after waiting 5 years for a battery increase.

Emma, I liked “Who killed the electric car?” and its sequel: “The revenge of the electric car”; and I agree the former was the more informative.

The CEO at the time at least admitted that killing the EV-1 was the biggest mistake he made during his tenure. Admitting mistakes by these guys is hard to do.

Incidentally, Russian president V. Putin said of Obama’s admitting that the attack on Libya was the biggest mistake of his presidency shows that “He has a Heart”. While specifically praising Trump, Putin apparently also likes Obama, – Obama stating in a recent interview that ‘he always makes time for me and never makes me wait’ – it is obvious that Obama also likes dealing with the president of Russia.

But back to EV’s – there are different people in charge of electric car programs, some good, some bad at GM.

Mary Barra and the Volt team are good choices, at least according to retired Bob Lutz. Finally they got rid of the financial types and put ‘car people’ in charge of development.

The reason I think GM should be also given a pass is that it is obvious to anyone looking that the corporation is now SERIOUS about manufacturing electric and electrified vehicles, and not simply doing the minimum required as for instance those 17 mile EPA Fords, VW
‘s, Diamlers, and up to this point Toyota prius’s.
Chrysler’s (what is left of it) Marchione pleaded with people *NOT* to buy the Fiat 500 EV. And now he is saying they could make all kinds of EV’s but they just wouldn’t make money at it.

GM should be given plenty of credit for coming out with Mass Market EV’s – the only other entities to do this have been Renault and Nissan.

The big criticism I have of GM is hiring those guys from BMW who are EV-haters, such as DeNyschen at Cadillac. I’m thankful he *WASN’T* there during the development of my ELR, because if he was, the car would never have existed.

But Bill, even you’ve got to admit the Tesla jabs from GM are getting old. Competition is good for everyone and GM should embrace that instead of the pointless Tesla bashing. I find it quite sad really. GM has nothing to prove.

Well, if you’ve driven a Volt a bunch of miles…… There is a ring truth to Elon’s “amphibian” comment. That description would apply to any extended range hybrid for that matter.

Elon’s point really always is with all of GM’s resources they should do better. Be it better EV’s, contribute to charging infrastructure, etc. He has always been very clear what reignited his determination to build electric cars. The crushing of the EV1.

But who’s definition of “better”. I have driven a Volt many miles. I have 35K on mine and 85% of the miles are EV miles. I don’t think it’s “not a good car”. It’s an affordable hatchback that lets me drive anywhere.

I could list my grievances of why I think Tesla’s cars are “not great cars”, but that is besides the point. Everyone has opinions, and people shouldn’t be so thin skinned to go All-Tesla on someone when they are voiced.

I just think GM had a chance to lead in EV’s almost 20 years ago. We could have had ev’s based on nimh batteries. Just think where we would be now if the ev1 was supported by GM and they expanded the lineup.

It took Tesla and Nissan to bring evs to the world. I
would support Tesla because of its raison d’etre and to give it a chance to grow and become a major player. I think thats the main reason that I would support Tesla over GM. I also think that the Model 3 is a pretty good looker and perhaps its time to support a new way of buying and owning a car. The industry could use a little cage rattling if you ask me. In the end that usually benefits us the consumer.

“…you mean to tell me GM shouldn’t be allowed to do the absolutely MILDEST form of ‘hard sell’ advertising?”

Yeah, I entirely agree with your point. Elon doesn’t exactly have a good track record when it comes to speaking (and tweeting) in a polite, or even civil, manner about rival auto makers.

And yes, GM certainly deserves to brag about getting its 200+ mile BEV into production before Tesla does. That’s assuming the Bolt does go on sale when GM says it will, but I think that’s a fairly safe assumption; GM certainly has a better track record than Tesla for getting their new models into production when planned!

But unless something drastically changes, GM will be far more limited in battery supply than Tesla. Even if GM wanted to ramp up Bolt production to what Tesla projects for Model ≡ production in 2020, they wouldn’t be able to. And GM doesn’t want to, because they don’t make enough of a profit on plug-in EVs.

A GM spokesman estimated that they could ramp up production of the Bolt to perhaps 50k per year. Nobody, but nobody at GM is talking about 100k, let alone the ~400k that Tesla was planning by 2020… and now Tesla may be planning for even more.

Don’t get me wrong Bill, I’m actually not taking up for Tesla, but in this case they certainly are the Big Bully to the little guy. I certainly think that GM has shown it is capable of anything they decide to produce and make it great. I have a Volt (and an FFE), both of which are great cars and are affordable. And I’m sure the Bolt will be an excellent car as well, but instead of GM picking on the little guy (Tesla) that is barely able to produce the cars they make, why not just let their products speak for themselves. GM absolutely has valid points and facts to talk smack, and has the best EREV out today, and that’s why they should take the high road. They sell 9 million cars a year. Tesla is nothing to them as far as sells are concerned. If GM was as serious about selling electric cars as Tesla, then Tesla wouldn’t still be in business. Oh and I hope this doesn’t sound like “butt hurt” to some ?

If you want to talk about historically, namely most of the 20th century – there is no one worse than big-bad GM.

GM single-handedly shut down electric transportation (namely MILLIONS of passenger miles per day), by purchasing all the electric street car companies, making them go bankrupt by ruining service, and then ripping up tracks so that way communities had no choice but to purchase GM buses for public transportation.

This is an order of magnitude or two larger than the current EV issue, since to date the public isn’t exactly swarming to buy them.

Most of the larger cities had beautiful stations and cars.

In my own town, there was a high-speed electric train between Buffalo and Niagara Falls (100 years ago at least they were thriving metropolises) – but no more.

Ralph Nader has stated GM has advertised ‘Electric cars are just around the corner’ since the late 1940’s.

I believe the REAL thing that stopped GM from lieing, or kidding around, was when TOYOTA MISTAKENLY thought GM was going to come up with a HYBRID, and the Prius’ Development started.

EV’s are just a natural extension of a hybrid, in fact more VOLTLIKE parts are probably sold as 2016 malibu hybrids, than 2016 volts.

Internally, the person behind GM’s final adoption was Bob Lutz, who never gets enough credit. The entire engineering group stated at the time an electric car was ‘impossible’.

Its true Lutz used Tesla as an example, but only to shame the enginneering group into getting off the dime.

So I guess it depends on how long it takes people to forgive and forget. But they look like a positive EV company to me for the time being…

Over the past few years the US has destroyed 7 countries, either directly or through proxies. Obama should be given credit where it was due.

Interestingly, V. Putin, while polite, isn’t above talking down to people. At the UN Speech before his Syrian escallation (at the request of the legitimate gov’t there) says to the WEST :

“Do you realize what you have done?” hehehe.

Oh, and before someone says there are no free elections in Syria, they should checkout the footage on PRESSTV that shows Assad and his wife walking around hundreds of everyday people, whom are all smiling WITHOUT SECURITY.

Constrast this with British protests of Cameron and all the heavy police presence around him… Or the heavy handed thuggery that goes on in this country today.

There would be no vietnam war protests today. The protestors would all get Swat-Teamed.

Even Bernie Sanders has called for the ‘Demilitarization of our Police Forces’.

A presidential candidate wouldn’t mention it if it weren’t so, since he couldn’t get away with it.

C’mon Bill. Have some skepticism! If Assad was so beloved there would have been no uprising. He is a tyrant. Like his father before him. Of course one can make the argument that that is the only way one can run such countries. And you know PRESSTV is the Iranian propaganda arm, right?

“Oh, and before someone says there are no free elections in Syria, they should checkout the footage on PRESSTV that shows Assad and his wife walking around hundreds of everyday people, whom are all smiling WITHOUT SECURITY.”

Gosh yes, we certainly don’t have any reason to doubt what state-owned TV stations in a country ruled by a dictator broadcast to the public, do we?

Get your Putin propaganda of EV site. If you are yet another paid troll on Putin payroll that flood all discussion boards on internet nowdays, please get decent job. Your Putin is new age Hitler as is well known in countries neighboring Russia.

“The CEO at the time at least admitted that killing the EV-1 was the biggest mistake he made during his tenure. Admitting mistakes by these guys is hard to do.”

Hmmm, I think what he actually said was that crushing the EV1s was the biggest mistake. That is, it was a mistake from the public relations/marketing viewpoint. Canceling EV1 production wasn’t merely a good business decision, it was inevitable. Despite what’s claimed by the propaganda in “Who Killed the Electric Car?”, the comparatively primitive state of battery tech at the time was wholly inadequate for GM or any other auto maker to be able to make a profit selling BEVs with an even adequate range, let alone a good range.

Let’s remember that the EV1 was a test market vehicle, sold (or rather leased) at a price far below the actual production cost. Cars like the Chevy Bolt and the Tesla Model ≡ had to wait for 2016-17 battery tech.

At least now Texas has the CCS stations to support the Bolt. With the 200 mile range of the Bolt you can travel from DFW to Austin and to Houston. You can also travel to any city within a 200 mile range of those cities including San Antonio and Oklahoma City and almost to New Orleans.

A CCS station recently showed up in Little Rock. There two stretches between DFW and St. Louis, by way of Little Rock, that would require a L2 charge each. Once you reach St. Louis you could travel to New England in the Bolt charging up at CCS stations all the way.

All those CCS charging stations are typically one stall. Using that network requires a relatively small amount of new CCS cars. If the Bolt is successful and mass-produced at a high level, then that network cannot sustain it. Chevy have stated they will not build out the charging network. Going by other dealer models, even if they installed them at dealerships, they would probably be single stall. Essentially, by not investing in charging, Chevy is implicitly stating that they do not plan to produce a whole lot of these cars.

To put the CCS charger situation in perspective, you could travel in a Bolt from San Antonio, TX to Boston, MA charging at CCS stations all the way except that you would have charge up using L2 twice. At least one of those L2 charges could be an overnight charge at a Hotel or RV park with cabins.

“almost” New Orleans means you’re at the side of the road with a dead battery before you get there 🙂
Dallas to Austin is 180 miles minimum with exactly zero CCS charging opportunities until Round Rock (177 miles) and the rest of the EVGo CCS/Chademo boxes.
Nothing between any of those cities means its a crawl and pray drive.
To make it worse all the US CCS are either 50K or worse, the 24K chargers so each stop will take ages to charge because they are too far apart – i.e.: not a network.
No thanks.

How about stopping complaining about missing chargers when car is not here yet in significant numbers? Of course you will have issues and will need careful planning if you want to be early adopter. If it is too much for you and you need go on road trips too frequently, battery cars are just not for you. Once you have more cars, charging network will improve.

The range from CCS is 100 miles unless there’s CCS at destination, because you still need to drive back. And forget L2; for 200 miles, it could take 10+ hours using 6.6kW, which is most public L2 today.

Looking at plugshare, it seems it won’t take much to cover most of US with CCS for 200 miles range EV; much of the work is done. Problms is that those few missing locations aren’t likely to be used much, hence no or little income. Unless it’s government or other subsidy (or more than now), they’re not going to get built. And we know how crappy government projects turn out.

Now if GM would spend just few bucks (by few, I mean millions) to fill the voids, they could compete against Tesla at least for coverage. But instead, they talk about not necessary to put down pre-pay? Why not do a marketing Judo and say “pre-pay $1K for Bolt, and we’ll use it to expand CCS and we’ll give you $1K off Bolt price” I swear, these GM execs are morons, unlike their brilliant engineers.

What I’m talking about filling the gaps in seldom used areas. As such, lack of stalls isn’t much of an issue. But if Chevy decide to work on chargers, they could make multiple head chargers (eg 4 heads per charger, like Tesla’s 2 heads per charger) where power is shared. At busy times, at least people can charge rather than waiting.

Gee, if this is such a missed opportunity then why don’t you raise the capital and do it? If you are so much wiser than GM here is your chance. All kidding aside, the Truth is, EV’s are easily charged at home for 99% of most driver needs. They are not intended for long distance travel on a daily basis or even one car ownership. Ask yourself this how often do you take a trip of 400 plus miles and you do not make a stop?
The real reason for raising the battery range is to displace “range anxiety” that most perspective EV drivers presently have.
I believe that once the general public realizes that long range means little to nothing on a daily basis, EV’s will overtake ICE sales in the market place. 200 mile range is a huge step in that direction.

Most of the Austin, one DFW and one Houston dual CCS/CHAdeMO chargers have been up and running for about six months. A bunch of new dual chargers have been activated in DFW and Houston in the last couple of weeks. Go check out Plugshare that’s where I get my information.

Actually it’s more like 25-30K. GM doesn’t have Tesla’s ambition for EVs, they are just a sideshow for compliance purposes as demonstrated by:

-the fact that all the EV bits are third party sourced
-the car’s limited quick charge capabilities
-Zero factory quick charge infrastructure support
-GM’s role in the legal wars against retail models that could sell cars like Bolt in meaningful numbers

The question is how many will they need? I don’t think it will be nearly that much.

I suspect they won’t need very many as so many people (like me) will instead wait for the Model 3. But there are a lot of people that have rationally pointed out that they don’t need supercharging and/or they want a hatchback. The Bolt will probably be easier for many people to get in & out of since it will be taller.

But overall, I don’t think it is going to have the big sales that Model 3 has obtained (well, at least reservations).

Sure, you don’t need a reservation for the Bolt, but that doesn’t mean you will get one in 2017. I’d still guess that they are going to pull the “roll out to CARB states first” – and only to certain dealers and certain quantities, then get to the rest of the country later in 2018 after they realize they are producing more than demand specifies due to the fact that Tesla will chew them up and spit them out based on the Supercharger network alone.

I have to laugh at coworkers that gave me grief over the limited range of the Leaf – which has worked out just fine day to day. Many have now have adjusted their anti-EV attitudes and now say the 200+ range of the Tesla along with SuperChargers say that it is impractical. Some people are so stuck in the stone (oil) age it is ridiculous.

I hope for better success for the Bolt than I anticipate, but I wasn’t even going to hold out for a Bolt after my first Leaf based on what I saw happen with the 2016 Volt rollout – I went ahead with the 2016 Leaf, and put in my reservation for a Model 3 right away when it opened online.

“Many have now have adjusted their anti-EV attitudes and now say the 200+ range of the Tesla along with SuperChargers say that it is impractical.”

Yeah, I totally get that the ~80 mile EVs are impractical. I have one and I deal with it. But there are plenty of times I really wish I had more range and a really good fast-charger system.

But complaining about 200+ miles and Supercharging not being practical is ridiculous unless you very often go one multi-hundred mile trips; or sometimes go on multi-hundred mile trips where there are no superchargers available.

But for 99+% of the time, a 200+ mile EV with supercharger access will work just fine.

I was thinking that 150 miles would be enough. But now with Tesla pushing a 215+ mile EV that can be supercharged at an affordable price, only tiny percentage of people can rationally reject such a car because it is an EV. And that shows with the 400,000 reservations. (Yeah, I know that is still a very small volume of car sales but people are still learning, they haven’t delivered, and you can buy lots of cars for less than $20K so $35K still appears very expensive to many.)

I already asked it somebody else in a posting above, see there for more details: Why >2C in a BEV that was made for the mass market if even “premium” BEVs like Tesla Model S currently don’t have it? You’d need better = more expensive batteries.
Of course it would be a nice option, but the price will matter in this case much more as for the average Model S buyer.

Ignore that comment. Hadn’t refreshed the page in a longtime and the nasty comment was obviously deleted.

***mod edit (staff)***Oh, we on that sort of thing! Thanks for the point out though, with ~500 comments per day on average, we can definitely miss them if they are too elaborate/stealth inside a big post***mod edit***

I don’t think that the two vehicles are as comparable as some people are making it out to be. Both vehicles should be nice in their own right, but just because they are going to have similar prices and going to have similar ranges does not make them similar cars. One car is comparable to a Chevy Sonic, the other comparable to a BMW 3 series. If only Chevy would be able to have the Bolt priced closer to the Sonic.

The real question is how fast GM can iterate on the Bolt. They have at least a year and a half head start on Tesla, but will they be able to sustain that? In particular, there will be a market demand for autopilot and cheaper batteries over time.

True, Bolt is available quicker, but this is a compliance car from a manufacturer that considers it a sideshow rather than something that could be big. Therefore Bolt comes without serious quick charge capability (it can only charge 40% in 30 minutes) and without factory supported charging infrastructure. As a result it will be obsolete pretty quick affecting residual value.

Q1-How may BoltEVs are planned to be produced year 1? 25000,50000,100000?
Q2-What is the battery production capacity LG CHEM allocated to GM year 1? 50000,100000,200000?
Q3- Will customers be placed on long waiting lists if GM has miscalculated demand for the Bolt EV?
This is going to be interesting.

Yes, any suppliers sourced for the program are required by contract to produce up to an annual vehicle volume of 50K. This is how it works in the auto industry. The OEM provides a range of estimated volume and the suppliers quote to that estimate. If GM sees a trend toward the high end of the volume, they contact the suppliers and request more capacity. Usually there is enough time to ramp up the supply base before supply can’t meet demand. this is all transparent to the customer. 9 out of 10 times, if you go to a Chevy dealer, they can get you the car you want within hours or days…not years, like Tesla.

The biggest problem I see is: you still have to buy it from a Chevy dealer, and all the anger and frustration that accompanies that process. I leased a Volt and just bought a used one while I wait for the Tesla to roll out, and both experiences were just horrendous. I’ve rarely been so mad, and I spent over 3 hours at the dealer. Needless to say, I will never, ever buy another Chevy, and hopefully never step into a dealership again. That business model is done.

James, I had a similar experience a few months ago when I leased my 2016 Chevy Volt. I pray I don’t have to ever go back to another dealership to buy or Lease a car. In my personal opinion this is a huge Advantage Tesla has over these other auto manufacturers ( including General Motors). As for the charging Network, GM could buy into Tesla’s charging Network at any time. Tesla is open to that. Someone from Tesla even suggested it. Hopefully GM will join the Tesla charging Network. That would make the Bolt more attractive for many.

You are right, GM… I don’t *have* to put down $1,000 to wait in line for a ~200 mile capable EV. Rather I *want* to put the money down to support a better company with a superior product. Nice dig though. Keep on sippin’ the hatorade.

Am I the only wondering if there were some “cool” Easter eggs put in to the Bolt if all the haters would all of a sudden love it?

Seriously, I don’t care about fast charging, I don’t care about the Supercharger network and I don’t personally like a full window for the roof.

What I need is a car that gets me, my family, and some gear around town. While I probably won’t get a Bolt or a M3 the Bolt does seem to do that a lot better than the M3 will and not to mention a year sooner. One really has to wonder when the 200,000th reservation holder will get their M3 as well. 2018? I doubt it, quite possibly not even 2019…

If the Bolt is even half as popular, the 100,000th Bolt buyer won’t see their car until 2018 at least. Because of the planned capacities for both vehicles, a 2018 Bolt buyer and an early Model 3 reservation holder could be getting their vehicles at the same time.

Realistically if the demand for the Bolt goes through the roof I would expect Chevy to ramp up the production. May be challenging but then again they aren’t the car company that has consistently missed deadline after deadline after deadline…

The Model S has been profitable since at least the end of 2013, with a margin of about 25% per car, where maxed-out models have margins of over 28%. The 25% was Musk’s goal – to match or beat the margins of the industry leaders (like Porsche).

The Model X has the same goal as the S, and the Model 3 has a goal of 15% profit. The lower target for profit margin is one of the factors that enables a base Model 3 to be exactly half the price of today’s base Model S (S70 = $70k).

From the Globe and Mail.
Canadian taxpayers will fall about $3.5-billion short of breaking even on the money the federal and Ontario governments invested in the bailouts of Chrysler Group LLC and General Motors Co. in 2009.

If you are like over 90% of drivers, the 50 mile range Volt meets most your needs. And you can keep driving it all day after your charge is done when you want to get oUT of town. Stopping every 200 miles to charge a vehicle offers no excitement for me. It is akin to steam locomotives of the 1800s. They had plenty of coal, but only enough water to go about 10-20 miles.

I now see that yours is the only Shining Path to the paradise of EV World – the Way of Tesla S3X.

I confess that my spouse and I purchased a Ford Fusion Energi Titanium in 2013. The temptation was strong and we gave in: it is a reliable, great looking car (with many more high tech features than Tesla at the time) and, especially in combination with my solar panels (installed in 2001) we thought we were helping out the planet. Given my employer has charging stations at work, I fill up my Fusion only 4 times a year – but now I see that means nothing. The Fusion was affordable because we only paid for as many expensive batteries as we really need day to day – but we were not ideologically pure. I thought I could look my kids in the eye because I was demonstrating the values I was teaching, but I was wrong…

Thanks to the comments on this website, now I know the Way of Tesla S3X. The scales have dropped from my eyes. I feel nothing but shame. By purchasing a Ford, I have not encouraged Ford to build the Model E, but rather have enabled them to pass CARB standards and continue poisoning the planet. The trouble free car I enjoy so much is a piece of crap because it does not have male genitalia shaped “T” logos on it. People that are looking forward to the Bolt because it is the right tool to do what needs doing in their daily family lives should instead follow Elon on Twitter before it is too late. They must do as the twenty something males who camped out at the Tesla stores, giving their $1000 offering for a place in Tesla S3X Paradise a few years from now. They are on the one True Path.

They will borrow the Leaf owner’s rope that was used to toe it with a TITAN to recharge the battery fast, because the guy was late to a wedding.

200 miles of range should minimize the need for CCS to begin with. It looks like it will be an optional extra.

I’m planning on buying a BOLT but I’m not sure If I’m going to get the CCS model or not. Since it will be a second or third car, I don’t think I’ll need CCS in my case.

My Roadster didn’t have ANY Fast charging method, but I survived, and only ran out once 1 mile from home. Walked home, picked up the 110 volt cord, pushed the car to a nearby bar, and plugged it in for 30 minutes.

So is the 110 volt cord ‘fast charging’? It was in my case. Got me home.

“General Motors Exec: ‘It’s Not Necessary To Put Down $1,000 And Wait Until 2018’ For An Affordable, 200-Mile Electric Car”

Translation: “Just come on down to one of our dealers, who will be happy to pressure you into buying a gasmobile instead, and will insist on tacking onto the sales price a bunch of worthless stuff to inflate the price.”

Hi Inside EVs is it possible to find out for us folks living in Florida if the Bolt will be available in Florida ?? The NO smog test state.. I have a Rav-4 EV and it’s next to impossible to have any services done.. We had the see dealer light come on in January 2016. The car was still drivable and finally got a technician on April 12 2016 to change a coolant pump for a ten minute job..

Way early to find out the answer to that one, but if we the type of people to bet, we would wager the 2018 MY in late summer of 2017…just given the way the next gen Volt rolled out. But total WAG on that one at this point.

“We’ve also committed that it’s going to be a 50-state vehicle at launch. That’s to show our commitment to the technology. Our hope is that it becomes a high-volume-selling car, and that it’s not just for the coasts, it’s not just for a certain income level, but it is a long-range EV that anybody can get themselves into. … [This is] a good alternative to the luxury long-range EVs that are available now. It’s something that people can see themselves actually affording to get into. That’s the message from this car.” – Shad Balch, Manager of New Product and Public Policy Communications at GM

That being said, I guess we’ll never know for certain until it happens. 😉

IMO Bolt econobox shape is a design mistake, I wonder when established car makers will understand that an EV does not need to have a boring look. Still probably that GM is going to make a loss on every Bolt they will sell, that may explain the look, they might want to avoid selling too many of them before EV components price decrease sufficiently to make profits selling them.

It’s GM. Does anyone trust their stuff? They never built a car I wanted. I had a relative that had a Malibu and when they past away I had to sell it. Worst car I ever drove. So tiny inside compared to it’s outside. super uncomfortable. I put
$1000 on a new Model III. Tesla is the only American company trying hard to make great cars. I will go check out the Bolt but I doubt I would buy one. Any my god it appears the marketing folks at GM are fools too. People say Bolt and hear Volt. By naming GM.

Why would so many put $1000 down to secure an early spot for a car they haven’t seen? Because after 107 years GM quality has not improved. How would this customer know? Because he owns a 2014 Volt that keeps having problems and is fed up with GM’s definition of quality. I can safely say that the Bolt will be built with the same junk from the rest of the GM line. The concepts might be good, but the execution remains typical GM. It’s Lean Management in its purest form.
Having dealt with failing inboard chargers, shorted charging sockets, failed radios, failed door switches, poor dealership support, all in about 18 months, I am not likely to fall for that GM trap again. All good things take time…or you can just buy a GM. I wii not make that mistake again.